


나는 꽃이 아니지만 바람이요. (I am not a flower, but a wind.)

by northofthehouse



Category: EXO (Band), 君の名は。| Kimi no Na wa. | Your Name.
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Kimi no Na wa. | Your Name. Fusion, First Love, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Love, M/M, Memory Loss, New York City, Romance, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-15 02:25:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19601500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/northofthehouse/pseuds/northofthehouse
Summary: "The excitement of new romance will lift your spirits." Fortune Cookie, 2019





	나는 꽃이 아니지만 바람이요. (I am not a flower, but a wind.)

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt Petal:** 249  
>  **Author's Note:** OP, I hope you like this! I was going to write something much more true to the prompt (I really was!) but when I actually sat down to write, this happened. If you haven't seen Your Name (Kimi no Na wa), it is worth a watch and I definitely did not do that masterpiece justice. Still, I hope you enjoy this because I wrote it with my heart and I love these boys. Enjoy! <3

Jongdae is one stroke into writing his name when the pen drops. _Sehun_ , he thinks. _I won’t forget. I can’t forget. Your name is Sehun and I will remember you_.

Later, he is running, trying desperately to save the life of a town that has never wanted him, when he realizes that he has forgotten. His hand is clenched in a fist and his heart is breaking and he can’t remember why. All he knows is that what he holds in his palm is important and even when he falls, he holds his hand close to his chest to keep it safe. Then, when he lands, bruised and defeated, it’s what he finds written on his palm that gives him the strength to keep going.

That and the comet as it splits, streaking across the sky.

🎕

“I love a city with rain on its streets,” Baekhyun says, sighing wistfully as he leans against the window, his breath fogging up the glass.

Jongdae teases, “How poetic!” and laughs when Baekhyun pouts at him.

“I have my moments,” Baekhyun defends himself. He gestures outside to the rain-drenched sidewalk and the grey drizzle that started three days ago and hasn’t stopped. “You’re telling me this sort of weather doesn’t make you, I don’t know, inspired? Like there’s something new for you just over the horizon?”

“Like summer, you mean?” Jongdae remarks, still teasing. “It’s only barely spring, Baek. Give mother nature a little time.”

Baekhyun’s exaggerated pout becomes a pointed glare at Jongdae’s pragmatism. “No, I’m not talking about summer, you loser. I’m talking about April showers bringing May flowers. I’m talking about love.”

“You’re looking for new love?” Jongdae gasps dramatically, feigning shock. “Does Kyungsoo know about this? Should he be worried?”

The look Baekhyun gives him very clearly says “You’re an idiot, Kim Jongdae. You know what I’m talking about.” The swift kick to Jongdae’s shin also delivers this message.

“Ah, why?!” Jongdae whines, loudly. “I’m joking, jeez. We all know Kyungsoo would kick your scrawny ass if you tried to cheat on him.”

“My boyfriend loves my ass, thank you very much. And like you’re one to talk, Mr. Mom-Butt.”

“Uncalled for!” Jongdae whines again. “You wanna know what’s new on my horizon, Baek? Finding new friends!”

“Good luck!” Minseok yells from behind the counter. Without looking, Jongdae flips him off and, after a pause, all three friends dissolve into laughter.

“You know, Baek,” Minseok says, once he’s caught his breath, “you might be right about that whole new love thing. Tell him about your fortune, Dae.”

Jongdae rolls his eyes—he doesn’t believe in that superstitious bullshit—but obeys anyway because Minseok is older and also he does the scheduling and Jongdae’s not trying to be stuck at work doing early morning inventory anytime soon.

“We got takeout last night from that Chinese place down on 14th and my fortune cookie said I was gonna find love or something.”

Minseok scoffs. “Don’t let his nonchalance fool you, Baek. He put the fortune in his wallet.”

Baekhyun leans forward, intrigued and a little smug, and Jongdae sighs, pulling out his wallet. “Fine, fine,” he acquiesces, “if only to get you to leave me alone.”

“The excitement of new romance will lift your spirits,” Jongdae reads aloud.

With no thought to subtlety, Baekhyun and Minseok exchange a knowing glance and Jongdae, when he catches them out of the corner of his eye, stands abruptly.

“I have to go,” he says, suddenly desperate to be somewhere, anywhere, else—basically, as far as he can get from the jumble of confusion he feels whenever he wistfully considers falling in love. It’s not like he _wants_ to be alone, but there’s this heaviness he feels sometimes, like he’s lost someone important.

The grief of that loss is haunting. He’s experienced more trauma in his life than most 26-year-olds, but it is this lost love that cuts his heart the deepest.

And the lost memories of that love that cut deeper still.

The last thing he hears as the door swings shut behind him is Baekhyun’s bewildered “Was it something I said?”

Yes, and no. Jongdae doesn’t quite know. What he does know is that new romance in his future isn’t going to happen. Not as long as he feels like this.

That night, before getting ready for bed, Jongdae texts his friends a group-chat apology for his abrupt emotional shift and sudden departure. Predictably, Baekhyun gives him a hard time and Minseok waves him off. Jongdae, still troubled, sleeps fitfully and dreams of a town long since destroyed and a boy whose face he wants to recognize but can’t quite remember.

At work the next day Jongdae feels more tired than usual but tries not to take it out on the customers. He’s successful through most of the morning but exhaustion seeps through right after the mid-afternoon rush.

It all begins with the weather. Though the rain has stopped, briefly, the April wind stays strong, and Jongdae feels its chill every time a new customer comes inside. (This is the kind of spring he hates—the kind that’s really just winter hiding behind a different name.) He looks up from his phone at the latest bluster through the doorway, and smiles wryly at the man who’s just come inside. Disheveled and wind-swept, the man wears his raincoat like armor and curses quietly at his useless, now-blown-inside-out umbrella. He’s also beautiful, strikingly so, and Jongdae appreciates this detail with the detached weightlessness of bone-deep weariness.

In other words, Jongdae’s thoughts escape through his mouth and he only realizes he’s spoken aloud when the customer stops, startled, and flushes brightly.

“Thank you?” he says when he reaches the counter.

Jongdae shrugs—it’s too late to take it back and it’s not a lie—and says “You’re welcome. Order?”

The man returns Jongdae’s earlier smile, orders and pays, and then steps to the side to wait while Jongdae makes his coffee. Jongdae hands the customer his completed drink and the man maintains his smile as he leaves, even after he looks out the window, down at his broken umbrella, and out again at the rain that is falling once more.

Jongdae calls out “Good luck!” and, some 45 minutes later, makes his own way out into the rain. Ironically, his umbrella flips in on itself during his trek home, but the rain seems to be letting up some and he’s only a few minutes away, so Jongdae decides to just go without.

That night he sleeps better, dreamlessly, and when he wakes up the next morning, he’s met with the warmth of the spring sun shining through his windows.

The warming weather persists into the weekend and Jongdae soon finds himself dragged out to Washington Square Park by Minseok, a self-proclaimed “stir crazy” Baekhyun, and a reluctant Kyungsoo.

“I’m too pale for this,” Jongdae complains, throwing an arm over his face to shield his eyes from the sun’s glare. Baekhyun, laid out on the grass next to him, kicks Jongdae in the shin for this comment and then feigns confusion when Jongdae sits up and splutters in protest.

“That’ll bruise,” Jongdae huffs, his arms crossed over his chest.

Unapologetic, Baekhyun shrugs. He looks to his boyfriend for support, and Kyungsoo dutifully remarks that it could be worse.

Minseok pipes up then and tries to say that at least it’s not a frisbee to the face. Unfortunately for Jongdae, Minseok is literally mid-sentence when a frisbee comes flying at them out of nowhere and smacks Jongdae in the nose. He starts bleeding and it’s chaos—Minseok asking frantically if he’s okay, Baekhyun paling and turning slightly green at the sight of blood, and Kyungsoo muttering “ _That_ ’ll bruise” under his breath. Not long after there’s a gaggle of guys wearing Birkenstocks and out-of-season tanks who run up and start apologizing frantically.

“Please don’t sue,” one of them says, and Jongdae flaps a hand at him.

“Not gonna,” he slurs through his rapidly swelling nose and blackening eyes. “See, I’m fine! Totally fine.”

To Baekhyun, though, he whispers loudly, “Am I concussed? I think I’m hallucinating familiar faces.”

Baekhyun laughs nervously at this, but the man who’d asked them not to sue seems to understand. “You told me I was beautiful once,” he informs Jongdae somewhat smugly.

If his whole face wasn’t throbbing, Jongdae would roll his eyes. What a brat.

When the man introduces himself, however, Jongdae’s whole countenance changes. The man says “I’m Sehun, by the way,” and Jongdae swears his palms tingle and his heart starts to race.

“That's—” he says, but falters, overcome with emotion but not quite sure why. He tries again. “It’s nice to meet you, Sehun. I’m Jongdae.”

Sehun gasps, unexpectedly, and says, “Sorry, but do we know each other?”

Jongdae didn’t realize he’d started to cry, but now he feels tears, hot and wet, as they slip down his cheeks. He doesn’t know if he’s crying because he’s happy or because he’s so deeply, deeply sad. He doesn’t know if Sehun is who he was before, if this Sehun loves and aches and wants the same thing that _his_ Sehun did. If this boy standing in front of Jongdae with tears in his own eyes is the Sehun that Jongdae knew before the comet fell and everything that Jongdae had ever known disappeared forever.

But Jongdae does know one thing, and he says it aloud: “I remember you! Your name is Sehun, and I remember you.”

🎕

They’re practically inseparable, those first few days (weeks, months) after finding each other again. They talk about anything and everything, almost. Sehun doesn’t bring up the words he’d written on Jongdae’s palm so long ago, and so Jongdae doesn’t either. Still, he recalls the words in his fortune cookie, the hint at new romance in his future, and marvels at the universe.

 _Perhaps fate_ , Jongdae thinks, _does not despise him after all_.

“I can’t believe we found each other again,” Jongdae murmurs softly (and not for the first time). He has his face pressed into the pale, exposed skin where Sehun’s neck meets his jaw, and the warm, firm grip of Sehun’s arms around his shoulders is making Jongdae sleepy. He yawns, hot breath against Sehun’s neck, and snuggles closer.

“The universe knew I needed you,” Sehun mumbles quietly back. “Even when I didn’t know that myself.”

“I always knew,” says Jongdae thoughtfully. “I didn’t know it was you I needed, but I knew my life was missing something important. Knew I’d _lost_ something important.”

Sehun hums at this and the vibrations against his face make Jongdae’s nose itch. He reaches an arm up to scratch at it and stills in surprise when, as he returns to his original position, Sehun snags his hand and laces their fingers together.

“Why haven’t you asked,” Sehun wonders aloud, raising his and Jongdae’s entwined hands to his eye level and gazing at them contemplatively. “Why haven’t you asked,” he repeats, “about what I wrote that day?”

Jongdae knows, instantly, what it is Sehun’s referring to, and he’s surprised. This was, he’d assumed, their one secret, the one thing that they both remembered but would never discuss.

“We were barely more than kids,” Jongdae says, his voice raspy with emotion. “It wouldn’t be fair to assume that your feelings are the same as they were back then.”

 _Even if mine haven’t changed_ , he thinks, but doesn’t say aloud. Instead, he says gently, “It’s okay that you don’t see me that way anymore, Sehunnie. Life has a way of changing things.”

Sehun’s grip on Jongdae’s hand tightens, and he makes a low, wounded noise in the back of his throat. “You were my first love,” Sehun tells him. “And now you’ve come back to me. How could I not love you now as I did then? I lost you once already, Jongdae, and the thought of losing you again terrifies me.”

Jongdae doesn’t know how to respond and so stays silent, even as Sehun lifts their joined hands to his lips and presses a reverent kiss to Jongdae’s palm.

“The last time I saw you,” Sehun reminisces, “summer was about to begin. You looked so pretty in the fading twilight and all I wanted was a little more time.”

“Well,” Jongdae says, finally, “it’s twilight now and summer’s on its way. And I love you so much that it feels like we’ll _never_ have enough time.”

“But,” and here Jongdae pauses to kiss the spot right under Sehun’s ear, and then the corner of his mouth, and then his lips. “But,” he repeats, overwhelmed and out of breath and so, so radiantly happy, “we do have right now. And, if that’s all we get, I’ll take it and never let you go.”


End file.
